CHAPTER VIII.
"I KNOW IT WILL DO." Miss Stanbury carried her letter all the way to the chief post-office in the city, having no faith whatever in those little subsidiary receiving houses which are established in different parts of the city.

As for the iron pillar boxes which had been erected of late years for the receipt of letters, one of which,--a most hateful thing to her,--stood almost close to her own hall door, she had not the faintest belief that any letter put into one of them would ever reach its destination.

She could not understand why people should not walk with their letters to a respectable post-office instead of chucking them into an iron stump,--as she called it,--out in the middle of the street with nobody to look after it.

Positive orders had been given that no letter from her house should ever be put into the iron post.
Her epistle to her sister-in-law, of whom she never spoke otherwise than as Mrs.Stanbury, was as follows:-- The Close, Exeter, 22nd April, 186--.
MY DEAR SISTER STANBURY, Your son, Hugh, has taken to courses of which I do not approve, and therefore I have put an end to my connection with him.

I shall be happy to entertain your daughter Dorothy in my house if you and she approve of such a plan.
Should you agree to this, she will be welcome to receive you or her sister,--_not her brother_,--in my house any Wednesday morning between half-past nine and half-past twelve.